LAW 5980: Ethical Issues in Clinical Care - 2211

This intensive seminar students observe and analyze ethical and health law issues as they arise in two clinical settings: an intensive care unit (ICU) and a medical unit in University hospitals. Students spend ~20 hours/week, allocated across two mornings and one full day per week, observing in the clinical setting. They accompany physicians and other healthcare professionals on clinical rounds, observe family meetings or ethics consultations, and attend one or more ethics committee meetings. Students are expected to complete a self-paced medical terminology text; must attend an orientation session (time and location to be determined); and must participate in the weekly meeting (typically in the late afternoon or early evening) that synthesizes their observational experience. This affords students the opportunity to analyze their experience and the issues they observe, in light of assigned readings. Relatively light reading is assigned for each week. Readings bring social science perspectives to bear on medicine and healthcare and illuminate clinical ethics issues. Students also make a case presentation, write a case analysis, maintain a journal or field notes of the clinical experience, and submit those field notes for review and comment.